


Six Months

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can't count the number of times that I've almost lost you. But every night when you leave, I feel like you'll never come back."</p><p>It's been six months since Sam and Dean got together, and five months and twenty nine days since it really felt like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Months

“Hey, Sammy?”

Sam looked up at Dean as he exited the adjoining bathroom in the dilapidated motel room and sucked in a shaky breath. His short hair was spiked up in tufts at the front, in a style that would take others hours to perfect, but Dean managed to pull it off effortlessly. His face was freshly-shaven, and he wore a slate colored button-up shirt with the top few buttons undone, exposing a taste of his chest. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing a dappling of light freckles on his forearms. His cologne hung like a fog around him, adding to the musk that was just so Dean. One of his more expensive brands, Sam noted. He wanted to believe so badly, so god damn badly that it hurt, that he was the one Dean was dressing up for.

“I’m heading out for a bit.” 

Sam’s tongue hit the roof of his mouth in a gulp so loud that he was sure Dean could hear it as his brother’s voice floated into his ear and down his spine. If he did, he didn’t acknowledge it as he slipped the keys to the Impala into the pockets of his new slim-fitting jeans and grabbed his jacket from the crumple of sheets on their bed. Sam didn’t know why they bothered to get a king-sized bed these days. It wasn’t like Dean slept in it with him anymore. 

He wanted to say something to make his brother stay, but his throat went dry and all he could manage to say was, “Alright. When will you be back?” 

The look of regret in Dean’s mossy eyes was so sweet that it made Sam’s heart ache. When he reached an arm across the bed and brushed Sam’s shoulder, his heart swelled with hope momentarily before he realized that it was only a parting touch, another fleeting moment, before the hand retracted back quickly. “I’ll call.”

Sam listened to the rusty hinges creak as the door closed and heard the purr of the Impala as it backed out of the parking space outside. You could almost hear the rattle of his heart as it fell into his stomach.

He directed his attention back to the artificial light of his laptop screen and watched with despondency as the neat black text of a Wikipedia article blurred underneath the water pooling rapidly in his eyes. He bit his lip violently, probably puncturing the flesh, attempting to keep his lips from quivering as he spilled a stream of tears down his cheeks. His shoulders shook as a choked gasp escaped him and he forced out broken half-breaths from his marred lips.

Sam collapsed onto the bed and clutched at himself in attempt to hold back the emotions that threatened to suffocate him. His fingers trembled as they fisted handfuls of his hair, trying to find purchase on something to keep him grounded. Dean’s scent was asphyxiating him, it was everywhere. Filling his nose with it’s teasingly halcyon scent, ghosting across his lips like the kiss he doubted he’d ever receive again. God, when was the last time he had kissed him like he really meant it? The last time he’d kissed him without having the taste of another whore’s lipstick on his mouth, or the bruises on his neck and jawline that Sam hadn’t made himself? The last time he’d tugged him into his full, parted lips by the collar and kissed his breath away like he might die if he so much as thought of letting go? It had been too long.

He knew Dean wouldn’t call. He’d come back at some ungodly hour, pawing at the motel door, inebriated and delusional, his clothes thrown on haphazardly, smelling of his own bodily fluids and that of his partner’s, his skin touched and bitten and kissed by another. Sam felt sick at the thought. He wasn’t sure how many more times he could do it. It was like watching himself die, knowing that the pain was gnawing away at him, eroding him from the inside out, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. It was killing him.

He cradled his head in his hands as his pained sobs convulsed his body and his harsh breaths made his bones feel like they were shattering within his chest. His face was hot and he could feel the blood pounding in his cranium, constricting his thoughts. He writhed and tangled himself in the acrid sheets and watched as the fabric went dark under his tears. Sam couldn’t stand it. He hated how weak he was, hated how he would carve out his heart for Dean if it made him happy, hated the way he’d let him walk away from him to fuck a girl he wouldn’t remember the name of in the morning. Dean was the dream and the nightmare that he’d never wake up from. And the worst part of it all, was that Sam couldn’t stop loving him.

The memories came flooding into his brain like a burst of water breaking through a dam. He remembered the night that they had made love for the first time, everything down to the last miniscule detail. The way Dean’s rough, calloused hands held Sam’s hips ever so delicately, thumbs brushing reassuring circles over his tanned skin as they ground their bodies together. The way that he would kiss away the wrinkles in Sam’s forehead as he pushed into the soft heat of his virgin hole with the most endearing caution. He had been so afraid to hurt his little brother, and the way Sam’s name had fallen from those damp, full lips when he released inside of him was something he couldn’t ever forget. 

That was six months ago.

Sam clenched his teeth at the memory and dug his nails deep into his palms, ripping apart the supple skin and leaving angry red, bloody crescent-moons in their place. Dean would probably question him about it later, and Sam knew he wouldn’t be able to make it through that. He knew exactly how it would go down: the tinge of regret tainting those olive eyes would make him want to scream, and the unbearably gentle care he took in bandaging his mottled hand would make him want to die. He wouldn’t be able to look at him. The distress on his face would eat him alive.

Sam had tried so hard to get over it, to accept the fact that Dean didn’t need him like he so desperately needed Dean. But every time he made the mistake of looking into those gorgeous eyes, he fell a little bit more in love. It hurt so badly.

His wails of anguish bounced off the crumbling wallpaper and assaulted his ears, taunting him with his own pitiful noises. He was left drawing in greedy gulps of air when his tears started flooding into his mouth and he thought for a moment that he might actually be drowning. His bloody hands left vermillion stains on the astringent pillows as he struggled to find something to hold on to. He thrashed and cried until his throat burned and he couldn’t spare another breath, in fear that his lungs might deflate if he pushed them any harder, and fell to the bed. 

Moments later, he succumbed to the pull of sleep. But he he couldn’t get his mind off the fact that every second ticking by before he fell into an uneasy slumber, was another one of Dean’s thrusts into someone that wasn’t Sam.

When Dean pushed the key into the dirty lock and opened the door to the motel room, it was well past three in the morning. He shrugged off his leather jacket and let it pool to the ground, then emptied his pockets onto the table. Rubbing a hand over his tired eyes, he scanned the room. Same 90’s wallpaper peeling off the wall, same salt lines tracing the windowsill, same spiderwebs gracing the ceiling. A Sam-shaped lump was strewn across the bed, and he could see the rise and fall of the sheets as he breathed. The hum of the heater could be heard over Sam’s soft snoring, and the air smelled like- was that blood? 

Stiffening, Dean pulled his handgun from his unbuttoned jeans and crept towards the bed carefully. He gulped at what he saw. The linens were in fact covered in handprints of dried blood. It was smeared across Sam’s cheeks and jawline and slicked into his long hair, forming sticky clumps that stuck to the pillow. Some of it had made its way under his fingernails, and the deep nail marks in his palms were clotted with scarlet. Dean’s stomach tightened when he saw the wet, shiny line of tears that had washed away some of the blood on his face. It hurt worse to know that he had been the cause of them.

When he came back after each of his late night excursions, he never failed to see the poorly-veiled expressions of hurt shaping his little brother’s face. The way his lips turned upward slightly in a forced smile to greet him, the way his brow crinkled in sorrow when he smelled the cheap perfume that clung to Dean’s clothes like limpets. He could see the light being drained from his eyes. Sam would say it was alright, that he understood, that he was okay, but as the days turned into weeks into months that Dean hadn’t returned his whispered “I love you’s, the less okay Sam seemed.

It had never gotten this bad. Sam had always hidden his tears away under layers of lies and reassurances. Dean had always known how much it hurt him; the pain in his expression was like a flickering neon sign being battered by raindrops. But now, with his baby brother's heart laid out before him, stripped and vulnerable, he knew this couldn't go on any longer. 

Setting his gun on the bedside table, Dean leaned over and rubbed a gentle hand on the small of Sam’s back in an attempt to wake him up. Being the light sleeper that the job required him to be, Sam woke immediately, flinching at the contact from those hands that he knew so well. When his startled eyes darted around his surroundings and froze at the sight of his bloody hands, Dean swore that he could feel Sam’s skin go cold.

He gazed down at Sam with a sad smile and pressed a finger to those velvet lips to stall the onslaught of stutters and nervous excuses that were bound to flood out of him if Dean gave him the chance. When his finger met blood instead of skin, he could feel the chill of it seeping into his bones. Sam had almost bitten through his lip, too. Dean's heart cracked. 

He grazed his thumb over the slitted perforations as Sam's eyes filled with dread. He looked terrified. The way the flush in his cheeks seemed to leak from his skin, and made the crimson pulsing out of his palms all the more bright as his hands fell limp and lifeless beside his trembling form, the way he eyed Dean’s thumb as though it might suddenly rake across his injury and jab into his flesh, the way Sam’s entire being looked as if everything he had worked so hard to build was slipping through his fingers like a fistful of sand...Dean had seen it all before. In the eyes of a dying man.

“Christ, Sammy, what have you done to yourself?” His words rolled off his lips in the form of a tentative whisper, as if he was approaching a wounded animal. Sam’s teeth clenched and Dean could see his adam’s apple oscillating viciously underneath the taut skin of his neck. He batted his eyelashes rapidly and swiped at his eyes, only succeeding in besmirching his cheekbone with more blood.

The silence that clouded around them was a foreboding fog. Sam’s eyes were concealed underneath his long, shaggy bangs as he seemed to sink into himself. Dean’s hand pulled away from Sam’s bruised lip and instead rested warmly on his little brother’s knee in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, but was met with a pained wince. He could see the tears merged with blood as they dripped down Sam’s jaw and into his lap.

Dean had to gulp down the emotions that threatened to consume him. He breathed quietly, cautiously, as if the next sharp intake of breath he took would shatter Sam’s frail state like a bullet through a sheet of glass. He leaned forward, desperately searching for the smallest gleam of life in his brother’s hollow, wet eyes. Willing his voice not to crack from the tears that he knew were forming behind his irises, he whispered, “Sam, look at me.” Sam shriveled away from him, and Dean swallowed heavily. “Sammy, please.”

When he didn’t so much as move, Dean sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and gnawed softly, searching desperately for the words that might bring the life back into the shell of the person in front of him. “Sam, we need to talk about this. I...I know that what’s been going on is hurting you...but I can’t let you beat yourself up like this when I’m gone...I didn’t know that it was this bad. I-”

“You smell like her.” 

If he wasn’t a few inches away from him, Dean would have never heard Sam’s choked whisper. It escaped the confines of his lips strangled and broken, warped by the tears now spilling freely from his bloodshot eyes. “Sam?”

His shoulders fell in silent despair. And suddenly, the words were rambling from his mouth in uncontrollable sobs, only stopping for a half-second when he needed to fill his lungs with the amaroidal air to keep going. His words were so garbled by his cracked whimpers, but Dean held onto every last syllable like a vice as Sam cried. It killed him to see his brother unwinding and falling into a disintegrating mess in front of him, and he felt the concern, sadness, and unimaginable guilt pitting in his stomach. 

The worst part of it though, was that every sound uttered from those bloody lips was undeniably true. Sam struggled to get everything out and into the air around him, twisting it from himself like a jab from a pair of pliers, because he knew it had to be said. As he listened, Dean's eyes pricked with salty tears of his own and all he could think about was taking him into his arms and kissing the pain away, turning the gashes and nail marks into affectionate nips. 

"You always smell like them when you come back, and I-I can't stand it. We-Wev'e been together for six months, but it doesn't feel like it at all. We never sleep together anymore, and you won't let me kiss you or touch you and most of the time you don't even look at me. I know that you sleep with other women, and I still don't really know why, I-I just figured that I'm not good enough for you or something like that."

Sam took a deep, shaky breath and continued. His heart pounded in his ears and his blood thundered inside his veins, racing along his pulse. All the while, he felt Dean's eyes baring into him and he swallowed uneasily. Being under the gaze that used to be the safest home he knew was now like being on an operation table, naked and bare, awaiting the sharp sensation of dulled claws and blunt fangs to rip away at his heart. 

"I know that you probably don't need me, but I can't help but fall in love with you all over again every time I see you. It hurts so fucking bad, Dean. I just find myself getting lost in your eyes, or your smile, and I just can't look away, but then I remember that you're not mine and my stomach hurts."

Another whimper. "I can't count the number of times that I've almost lost you. But every night when you leave, I feel like you'll never come back."

Sam closed his watery optics and welcomed the dark shield that the back of his eyelids provided him. He felt so pitiful, so fucking weak. He could feel himself crying, could feel the tears nudging themselves through his eyelashes and smudging against the crinkled lines of skin as he squeezed his eyelids closed so mercilessly it looked like they would rip off. 

The weight of Sam’s words came crashing down on Dean like the charred panels of a burning house. He looked empty, as if the tears that never seemed to stop drained the entirety of his being out of him, leaving only a dull ache of life in his entity, a heartbeat without a heart. Sam was bracing himself for rejection. Dean had always sworn that he'd make anyone-anything that hurt his little brother pay dearly for it, but he wasn't sure what he should do now that he was the one who had dealt the damage. 

Dean struggled to hold back his own tears as he took the other’s maimed paw in his own and tangled their fingers together. It felt limp and cold in his own warm hand, and it sickened him beyond belief. He looked down at their entwined hands with a cumbersome expression as he spoke.

"Don't fucking say that, Sam, don't you fucking dare. You're more than enough for me. I'm just a blind idiot who can't see what's right in front of him. I don't deserve you."

The confession that made it’s way past his lips was forced out by an invisible chain around his neck. The sadness swelling in his chest slowly crept along his body and paralyzed him, numbing all of his senses until all he could focus on was the heat emanating from Sam’s hand. He clung to it like a lifeline.

“I went to a bar a few blocks away tonight. Downed some shots, played some pool, and I...well, I chatted up this chick at the bar. Dress so small it hardly left anything to the imagination. Brown hair that came down to her waist, some freckles on her shoulders. She had a really cute laugh. Laughed at every damn thing I said.” He gave Sam’s hand a squeeze. “We...we went back to her place, and I fucked her. Pert tits, wide hips, tight waist, ass that fit perfectly in the palm of my hand.” He let out a bittersweet sigh and continued. 

“But I couldn’t think about this whore spreading her legs for me. All I could think about was you, how I wanted to touch you like I did six months ago, hear your sweet little sounds instead of hers. I knew you'd be here, knowing what I was doing, and my I just couldn't take it..My heart breaks whenever I make the mistake of looking behind my shoulder when I’m leaving, and I see those big, forlorn eyes of yours. I didn’t want to do this to you. Honestly, I didn’t. I...I was trying to convince myself that I didn't need you. You're all I have left, Sam. And...and if something were to happen to you...I wouldn't only lose my brother."

A tear slipped free of his eye. "I'd lose the love of my life, too." 

Sam was shaking when he let Dean guide his face upward by a slender finger underneath his chin. He peered at him through his lashes, and seeing the tenderness in the other’s expression, fresh tears slipped out of his eyes. Dean leaned in to brush his lips against each of them in a gentle caress, his heart swelling when Sam fisted his hand tight in his thin shirt. He murmured soft words against the tracks of tears spilling down his cheeks as he pressed another kiss to the bloody flesh. “Shh, Sammy, please don’t cry.”

And then Dean's arms were around him, enveloping Sam in a touch so unbearably tender that his heart ate itself from his chest. Wind-beaten hands threaded through the curls at the nape of his neck and Sam felt the firm pads of his fingers tug on it lovingly. He tucked his face into his older brother's neck, seeking shelter in the hollow above his collarbone, and breathed in his masculine scent.

Dean buried his lips in long wisps of chestnut hair and breathed hot air onto Sam’s scalp as he spoke. “Let’s get your hands cleaned up, and then I want to take you to bed. Just like the first time, six months ago. I’ll take such good care of you, baby, I promise.”

And he did. Sam had to hold back another wave of tears as Dean's careful hands held his own under the cool streams of the bathroom faucet until the water swirling in the drain turned from pink to clear. He pressed kisses to each of the crescent cuts in apology before hiding them under sheets of gauze. 

Dean loved him softly that night. Pushed himself in and out of his little brother’s tender flesh in slow, deliberate thrusts. He cradled his body in his strong, capable hands as he moved in him, giving Sam time to notice every detail, how thick he was, how he fit perfectly inside him, how he paused within each roll of his hips to ghost over all his sensitive spots with his mouth. His lips were sweet and yielding when he kissed him, and sometimes it was hard for Dean to wrap his mind around the immense trust that his brother held for him even after what he had done. By the time he climaxed, Sam was weeping into his shoulder with the emotion of it all, and Dean swept him into his arms like a broken butterfly in a cocoon. 

In the morning, when the icy dew graced the blotchy patches of dead grass outside the motel, and the sun's rays peeked shyly through the clouds and into the window, Dean was still there with Sam. Their bodies were nestled close together, Dean's arm slung protectively over his brother's naked waist and his lips pressed against the tan skin of his neck as he listened to the even breathing and steady heartbeat of the man next to him. 

"You're still here." Came the quiet whisper from Sam.

Dean stroked his thumb across the skin of his abdomen affectionately. "Go back to sleep, baby, I'm not leaving anytime soon."


End file.
